Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulty identifying and expressing emotions, both in oneself and in others. While alexithymia is not classified as a mental health disorder, it is often linked with various psychological and physical conditions and can significantly affect interpersonal relationships and emotional well-being.
People with alexithymia typically struggle with four primary difficulties:
Difficulty identifying feelings: People with alexithymia often have trouble recognizing emotions within themselves. They may not be able to tell whether they are feeling a specific emotion, but they may be able to tell that they’re feeling an emotion. - Difficulty distinguishing between emotions and bodily sensations: Emotional arousal can cause physical sensations, like a racing heart or tightness in the chest. People with alexithymia may misinterpret these sensations as purely physical symptoms without understanding the emotional root or they may misidentify the emotion they were feeling.
- Limited emotional expression: Alexithymia can limit a person’s ability to express their emotions to others. They may appear detached, uninterested, or robotic, making it harder to form deep emotional connections.
- Externally oriented thinking: Many people with alexithymia tend to focus on external events and concrete facts, rather than inner experiences and emotions. They may appear to show little interest in introspection or emotional analysis.
Alexithymia and Mental Health
While alexithymia is not a mental health disorder, it often coexists with psychological disorders like depression, anxiety, PTSD, autism, and ADHD. Some researchers suggest that alexithymia may act as a defense mechanism in people who have experienced trauma, allowing them to avoid emotional distress by disconnecting from their feelings. In other cases, it is caused by being neurodivergent. Regardless, not knowing how you feel makes it harder to regulate your emotions, which in turn makes it harder to cope with mental health disorders and concerns.
Alexithymia is often associated with increased emotional dysregulation, where emotions feel overwhelming or chaotic but remain difficult to define. This can lead to emotional outbursts, commonly referred to as meltdowns or shoving the emotions down and potentially disassociating, often referred to as shutdowns. Both responses are common in neurodivergent people, especially when experiencing sensory overload. These intense, unidentifiable emotions can exacerbate the difficulties of navigating a world designed for neurotypical people.
In neurodivergent people who struggle with alexithymia, emotional processing may be even more abstract than it is for neurotypical people. Many neurodivergent people struggle with recognizing and processing emotions, but alexithymia heightens this difficulty. A person might know they feel “bad”, but be unable to discern whether that feeling stems from sadness, frustration, anger, or anxiety. This lack of clarity can lead to misunderstandings and make emotional regulation more challenging.
Coping and Treatment
Mindfulness is key in helping better identify and express emotions. Mindfulness helps people to observe and describe thoughts, body sensations tied to the emotion, and facial expressions and body language. If you aren’t aware of your emotions, it will be very hard to change and regulate them, which is why alexithymia can be hard to manage at times. Emotions help motivate us and organize our behavior. They help us communicate how we feel about something to ourselves and to others. Knowing what emotions do for us and the functions of specific emotions can also be helpful in managing alexithymia. If you want to know more about emotions, check out this blog.
It’s important to keep in mind that people with alexithymia are not devoid of emotions—they simply struggle to identify and articulate them. They still feel love, joy, sadness, and other emotions, but lack the vocabulary or awareness to express these emotions accurately.
Supporting people with alexithymia requires a patient and nuanced approach. Understanding that they may not be able to communicate their feelings as readily or clearly is essential. Rather than pushing for emotional explanations, it can be helpful to focus on practical strategies for identifying and managing emotions, such as using visual aids, charts, or writing exercises to help break down emotional experiences into more concrete terms.
While there is no cure for alexithymia, with the right support and interventions, you can learn to manage it. Developing emotional literacy can significantly improve your personal and professional relationships, as well as your overall quality of life. Understanding and acceptance from loved ones are also key in helping people with alexithymia navigate their emotional world.
About the Author
Robyn Williams (she/her), M.A., LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor who specializes in dialectical behavior therapy. Robyn works with teens and adults in a compassionate judgment-free manner to meet clients where they are in life. Robyn helps her clients develop the tools they need in order to live their life worth living, and find what means most to them. Robyn believes that while therapy can be intimidating at times, it can be a conduit for personal growth. Click here to learn more about Robyn’s experience and therapeutic approach.